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I have to totally disagree it's not an invasion of privacy it's only use is for tracking down counterfeiting. i work for 5 years with Xerox and Canons copy machines

That is how I recall it when these machines first came out. It was in the news that there was concern about counterfeiting and that our Bank of England was in consultation with the manufacturers to find ways of combatting it. I would imagine that other governments/national banks did the same.

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

Think about in a public setting though, say a person is committing a crime, or printing off sensitive information from a library printer. In public places such as libraries people believe they have a right to privacy. I agree though, we are looked over and tracked so many ways over the course of the day, whats the big deal. It happens.

nihil, one point that I would like to make is that dna and gun ballistics are not (to my knowledge) deliberately imprinted by companies for the purpose of tracking. I don't really care whether a machine that I use prints yellow dots on anything that I print that can be used to track documents back to machines because I know I'm not going to do anything wrong, but that does not make it right for manufacturers to create tracking devices and not make it clear to the consumer that they are installed in machines that they buy.

And we are told that this technology is only used to "bring criminals to justice", but how can we really be sure about that (not that I can really think of another reason off hand).

If you think this is wrong start bitching at Kodak and the makers of any film as they include serial numbers on their rolls.

The only people who really will feel this is an issue are people who are committing crimes. All it can do is link a document with a printer. Big deal.

Chris Shepherd
The Nelson-Shepherd cutoff: The point at which you realise someone is an idiot while trying to help them.
\"Well as far as the spelling, I speak fluently both your native languages. Do you even can try spell mine ?\" -- Failed Insult
Is your whole family retarded, or did they just catch it from you?

one point that I would like to make is that dna and gun ballistics are not (to my knowledge) deliberately imprinted by companies for the purpose of tracking.

High explosive 'Semtex' is: made in the eastern bloc country of Czechoslovakia [now two seperate entities]After the fall of the Soviet, it was deliberately fingerprinted at the insistence [?] of the western governments, as it was THE explosive of choice for the terrorist at the end of the Soviet empire.

Bullets are uniquely marked by the barrel as they leave the weapon.

Radioactive waste / fallout is all uniquely composed, analysis shows which nation produced the stuff, and even if it was originally in a civillian or military reactor.........

the DNA you inherited from your parents.................

If you look hard enough, the tell tales are everywhere. There really is NOWHERE to hide anymore.

Any mention of OBL........... he is aware of the western technologies, enough knowledge to ensure that he NEVER uses any.

There seems to be a certain paranoia about tracking as opposed to "TRACING" which is a retrospective reactive activity.

Tracing, is just forensics, we have had numerous cases of forensics on old fashioned typewriters producing sound convictions. That is why I referred to ballistics, DNA etc, as these are retrospective forensics.

Think about in a public setting though, say a person is committing a crime, or printing off sensitive information from a library printer. In public places such as libraries people believe they have a right to privacy

I wonder...............as you know, in the UK our laws specifically DENY PRIVACY in public places, unless you are a Judge in Sessions...........in which case you cannot be photographed in public The message is "If you can't take the heat.................stay out of the kitchen" Anyway, you should not print sensitive stuff on public equipment, because you are in an insecure environment.

And, as chsh rightly observes, it only" links a document to a device.............so what?" that does not prove who published or printed the document?

In the case of counterfeit currency or fraudulent instruments, the document itself is illegal, and it is the uttering of these fraudulent instruments that compounds the crime.

Please do NOT mistake "privacy" with immunity from prosecution

I still do not see an issue here

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

I don't see this as a problem. Even if you do counterfeit money. If you were a smart criminal (if there is such a thing) you would buy (or steal) the printer, not register it, do your thing, then destroy it. It's really not a big deal I don't think. Just a way to catch the more ignorant and less schooled of the Crime World. But, governments do like to waste money on a false sense of security.
So, don't counterfeit money, don't print death threats to the President (or King and Queen), or ransom notes on printers, unless you want to take a chance of getting caught. And if you were doing any of those three things, then you deserve the affectionate title of "Dumbass".

Originally posted here by gothic_type nihil, one point that I would like to make is that dna and gun ballistics are not (to my knowledge) deliberately imprinted by companies for the purpose of tracking.

the ballistic marks on guns are made for the sole purpose of tracking the gun. These marks are not an invasion of privacy, well not anymore then how type writers would leave individual blemishes on paper, or any other type of forensic stuff. Every machine does it, it does not identify the user it identifys the machine.